


the things we never had

by WeeBeastie



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Charles is bad at relationships, Explicit Sexual Content, Jack loves Charles, M/M, PWP-ish, Porn with Feelings, Smoking, but he tries, slightly rough sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 19:16:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15226047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeeBeastie/pseuds/WeeBeastie
Summary: gonna take a lot to drag me away from youthere’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do





	the things we never had

**Author's Note:**

> Written for rarepairs week 2018 woo! I love these boys. <3
> 
> Title and lyrics in the summary taken from “Africa” by Toto. Yes, really.

Jack is asleep, alone and dead to the world, when he wakes suddenly to the creeping sense that someone is in his room. He opens his eyes, squinting in the dark, and makes out the hulking figure of Charles easing his way towards the bed, carefully avoiding the squeaky floorboard near the dresser. 

“Chaz,” Jack mumbles sleepily, “I know you’re there. No sense in trying to sneak up on me.”

“Not sneaking,” Charles rumbles as he sheds his shirt, then his trousers, and slides into bed next to Jack without a stitch of clothing on. “Was trying to be quiet so’s not to wake you. Know how you get when you don’t fuckin’ sleep.”

“And how, pray tell, do I get?” Jack asks, yawning, as he rolls over onto his back and rubs his eyes with his fists. There’s a faint bluish light coming in through the curtains - it’s almost dawn. 

Charles pushes himself up on his forearms, looking impassively at Jack as though studying him and mentally taking notes for later. 

“Quarrelsome,” he finally growls with certainty, then drops face first into the pillow with a quiet moan. 

Amused and a bit surprised, Jack leans over him, risking some small affection - he smooths Charles’s snarled hair aside and idly rubs the tense spot between his shoulder blades. 

“I didn’t know you knew that word,” he says, and Charles turns his head to the side, one eye cracked open. 

“You call me it enough, I oughta know by now.” 

“Fair point,” Jack murmurs, biting back a smile. 

Charles raises one arm in invitation and Jack slides under it, pressing close to him. He smells like he’s been up to no good - the scent of gunsmoke clings to his hair and there’s a faint whiff of the tang of blood on his skin. He looks remarkably clean, though; must’ve washed up somewhere before coming to see Jack. 

Jack expects at that point to be thoroughly manhandled as per usual, but instead Charles turns on his side to face him, rests a hand on Jack’s cheek, and leans in to give him a passionate and lingering kiss. When he pulls back, Jack’s lips are tingling. 

“Night, Jackie,” Charles says with a crooked grin, and just moments later he’s asleep, snoring. 

“Goodnight, Chaz,” Jack says quietly, looking at his sleeping form in wonder. 

When he wakes several hours later, the full power of the Caribbean summer sun bathing his room in golden light, he imagines Charles will be gone. To his pleasant surprise, though, the man himself is still there, sitting up in bed next to Jack. He’s got his hair pushed behind one ear so Jack can admire his leonine profile (and he does so). He’s holding a cigarette in one hand, taking an idle drag on it while Jack watches, rapt. 

“See somethin’ you like?” Charles asks gruffly without looking at him, and if Jack didn’t know better he’d think Charles was...flirting with him. 

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Jack says, leaning in closer to him. He can flirt, too. “Did you know, Chaz, that in the right light, you rather resemble a big cat?” he asks. “Something about your eyes.”

Charles glances over then, exhaling smoke from the cigarette through his nostrils. He smirks. 

“Fuck off with that,” he says, shaking his head. He sounds pleased, though. He stubs out the cigarette on Jack’s nightstand and then leans in, kissing him like he did the night before, his tongue finding its way into Jack’s mouth. “C’mere,” he purrs against Jack’s lips, then grabs him by the hips and pulls him over to sit in his lap. 

Jack makes himself right at home on top of Charles, pulling away for only a moment to yank his nightshirt off over his head. He braces his hands on the headboard on either side of Charles and kisses him again, pressing their bare chests together. He makes a noise of frustration when Charles moves away to grab something - the oil from the nightstand, as it turns out - that becomes a moan of pleasure when Charles bites down on the sensitive spot behind his ear and sucks hard enough to leave a bruise. 

“Fucking hell,” Charles breathes against his skin, and then Jack feels two of his thick fingers, slick with oil, pressing against his hole and easing slowly inside. The stretch burns a little, but Jack enjoys that. He presses back against Charles’s fingers with a sigh of pleasure, closing his eyes. 

They work together quickly and soon Jack is sinking down on Charles’s cock, hissing through his teeth and digging his fingernails into Charles’s biceps. He moves with him, feeling him deep inside, feeling his own face flush, sweat dripping down his spine. He lets go of Charles’s arm and presses his palm to the brand on his chest. They lock eyes. Dimly, Jack hears the headboard thumping rhythmically against the wall, but all he cares about is Charles’s body and his own and what they can do - are doing - together. Charles lunges forward and holds Jack tight around the waist, growling filthy things in his ear as he fucks him, his hair sticking to Jack’s sweat-slick skin. Jack grabs Charles’s hair in one hand, pulling it as hard as he dares, and works the other hand in between them to start stroking himself frantically. He hears Charles’s breathless, delighted laugh, and then one of Charles’s hands glances off his ass with a resounding smack, three times in quick succession. Jack shouts his appreciation, his voice cracking, caught deliriously between thrusting forward into his own hand and down and back against Charles’s cock. 

“Come on, Jackie, that’s it,” Charles purrs in his ear, and then his teeth close around Jack’s earlobe and bite down, hard. That does it for Jack - he writhes in Charles’s close, hot embrace and comes between their bodies, head tipped back, teeth bared in a snarl of pleasure. Charles bucks up into him twice more, hisses out a stuttered curse, and finishes inside Jack with a noise that’s more of a roar than anything else. 

As he catches his breath, Jack pulls off Charles and slumps over backwards, gasping for air and blinking up at the ceiling. The earthy, salty scent of them is thick and heavy in the room, and Jack inhales it, spine tingling with satisfaction. Charles shifts and seems to melt into the bed, lying on his belly next to Jack, looking dazed and pleased. 

“ _Darling_ ,” Jack says dreamily before he can even really think about it. The word hangs in the air between them as Charles pushes himself up to sitting, then gets out of the bed. His expression has changed to a scowl so quickly, it’s like a door being slammed shut in Jack’s face. “Charles, wait. I didn’t mean— you don’t have t—”

“Got shit to do,” Charles mutters, his back to Jack as he snatches his clothes from the floor and gets dressed so quickly he leaves with his shirt on inside-out. He pulls the door shut behind him so hard, the sound of it echoes through Jack’s suddenly empty room, dissonant and mocking. 

He doesn’t see Charles again for a week. 

He looks for him, of course. Gives him a day or so to cool off, then scours Nassau for him, haunting all his usual hiding places to no avail. Charles has completely disappeared - he’s not going to be found until he chooses to be.

That choice comes of an evening, as Jack is sitting at his desk in his room, idly sipping from a bottle of black spiced rum. He’s not drunk yet, just warm and loose, his jacket on the back of his chair and his boots in a pile by the door. His old, slightly out of tune violin is sitting on the desk, so he picks it up and begins to play a song he only half-remembers. Before he can get too far into it, though, his door swings open, and there, at last , is Charles. 

Jack stops, puts the violin aside. He stands and takes a few cautious steps towards the man in the doorway. 

“Charles,” he says, looking him up and down. He’s filthy, and he looks like wherever he’s been for the past week, it was nowhere good. “You’ve come back.”

Charles says nothing, just nods. 

“Look,” Jack begins. “You have to know that when I...what I _meant_ to say was, of course, that—” he tries, but Charles interrupts him. 

“Jack. Stop,” he says quietly. He advances on Jack and grabs him in a fierce embrace, so tight Jack could swear he feels his ribs creak. For a moment, Charles just holds him that way, and Jack relaxes into it, not caring one whit that Charles is dirty and bloodied. When Charles lets go, he takes a half-step back, his hands resting heavy on Jack’s shoulders. “Understand?” he growls, his eyes keen. 

“I do, yes,” Jack murmurs, and leans in, giving Charles a brief kiss. “I understand completely.”

Charles embraces him again, and as he does, Jack silently marvels at just how much he can say with so few words.


End file.
